United Conservative Party members will have to select a new candidate for the Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland riding as nominee Dale Johnson was disqualified by the party after it was discovered he paid $5,584.60 to an employee he fired after an affair with her ended.
Johnson said he was informed by the party in writing of the Sept. 29 decision and disagreed with it. The newly-formed Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland riding includes the Hamlet of Busby.
“I definitely disagree with the decision,” he said. “However, they do have the right to make that decision and they did it. I’m not going to challenge it. What’s more important is to gather around the new candidate and together defeat the NDP, not only as a constituency but as a province.”
He said he will throw his support behind whomever the party selects and will not run under either the Freedom Conservative Party or the Alberta Advantage Party.
Johnson won the nomination Aug. 22 following a rocky race that saw one candidate disqualified over jokes about sexual assault made on social media. He was the only candidate to visit Busby, which sits at the northern tip of the riding.
UCP executive director Janice Harrington confirmed a new nomination race will be held, though a date for the new vote has not yet been set.
“Mr. Johnson failed to disclose a concerning legal matter as required. The party takes this matter extremely seriously,” she said in an e-mail. “Mr. Johnson was previously made aware that his candidacy was under review pending an investigation. Mr. Johnson has since been notified that he is no longer a UCP candidate.”
A ruling made in January 2015 following an employment standards order shows Johnson fired his bookkeeper after the pair got into a fight in Nov. 12, 2012.
That order states his bookkeeper, Janice Janiten, went to Johnson’s home because she believed he was cheating on her and confronted him. Ultimately Janiten was fired as bookkeeper for Country Automotive Specialists Ltd., a company owned by Johnson.
This is the latest in a number of controversies involving the UCP’s nomination candidates.
In the same week as Johnson’s disqualification, Drumheller-Stettler nomination candidate Todd Pawsey was also disqualified for making “inappropriate” Facebook posts.
In July, Brooks-Medicine Hat nomination candidate Todd Beasley was disqualified after it was revealed he posted Islamophobic comments online and party whip Prab Gill resigned from the party caucus after a video that appeared to show him snatching ballots during a founding meeting of the Calgary-North UCP association.
